Tag: Writing

{I Believe}

I believe in God.

I believe in God, and  what Jesus did, being human.

Living fully, dying to atone for my messes,

of which there are many.  That Jesus

lives and now is with God the Father.  It is at times confusing and

other days

simple.  Just believe.

Or choose not to, that is your right.

I believe God speaks — within time, even to me

as God has spoke to many throughout the ages.

I want my life, the writings and images that I capture in time

to be

worship.

Revealing both the goodness and the devastation of this one life I have. Because

that–is–real.

I hope in God.  I hope in God to reveal

him or herself to me.  And then

what I share might help others as much as it has

utterly transformed me.

Running Toward Life

Writing the first words, after being gone is a little terrifying. I am

out of sync. And that’s the greatest crime, the cardinal rule. Bloggers write.  Regularly, with precision and passion

without pausing.

But I took time off.

I had to do it and I know that I was doing the right thing.

I did it in order to learn, to read (I read half the Bible), spend time with my kids, and figure out why it is so hard for me to just be.

For it is more important who I am than what I think. 

It is more important how I treat people than how I lay down words on a page.

It is most important that I am being the person. than that I am writing about her.

Now I feel creaky, rusty even to even put these few words here.  To begin the offering of myself again to others.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve had thousands of words come.  Most still a jumble

in my head.  And heart, as I ran more than 180 miles this summer the words came.

My head and heart and soul are full.

And I’m hopeful, for I am a gentler, (hopefully) wiser, more circumspect and certainly more confident person

after taking a break.

I look forward to joining up with you again soon

with chapters of the book, more poetry and ongoing spiritual musings. And some of the hundreds of photographs that I enjoyed taking.

MELODY

I’ve Been Quiet

I’ve been quiet, because the world is so loud. So many days I just cannot do anything more than put my hands over my ears and shut it all out.

This world where exegesis and hermeneutic and “being right “are more important than generosity and love.

A world where the decision of the Church or the Government feeding the hungry becomes intellectual and spiritual sport.

A world critical of mystical devotion of Henri Nouwen whom I revere.

A world where conviction over sexuality and what is or is not love makes people hate one another, aren’t we all God’s creatures?

A world where your or my “place” and opportunities depend on being born a boy or a girl; where little boys refuse to let a little girl play ball. just because she’s a girl.

The world, even the Church that cannot agree on much of anything.  And sometimes I think how Jesus must just weep over us all.

This world is upside down, crazy and it just makes me sad, even deeply wounded by it. 

I’ve been quiet because I have been writing. And I find that blogging makes me want more clicks, and comments, and there is never enough attention.  It feeds the part of my soul is ugly, that longs for significance.  Blogging doesn’t suit this heart .

Empty, shaken, longing for solitude, then I know.  I need more of Jesus.

I’ve been quiet because I’ve been writing and when I write I doubt.  I doubt my Call.  I doubt my talent.  I doubt that these things that tug on my heart, these words that seem so clear, that wake me up from a dead sleep, that dance around me like pixies while I mow the straight lines of the lawn, that chatter inside me telling me I’m stupid.

Yes, I’ve been quiet because when I write I doubt myself, and

this too is a challenge of a person who finds herself committed to words — to creating and giving them away.

I don’t know enough.

I don’t have a big enough audience.

I don’t say things that matter.

I don’t know much of anything.

Seeing a theme here, I, I, I, …

I get even more so — I need deep quiet.  And I know again that I need to drink from the spigot that is of forgiveness and true purpose and  being transformed.  When Jesus said “I have come” he meant  come to stay.  He’s here with us.  He’s here by my side, as I tap-tap-tap on the laptop.

More of him,

less of me.

That means deep quiet.

What’s changing, so that I can be writing!

This is such a busy time for folks with kids.  We are living the last month or so of school and for whatever reason my kids seem to teeter on the brink of things this year academically, spiritually, emotionally — this has been a challenging and demanding year.  With summer looming, there will be any opportunities to stick our feet in the river and less time to write.

I am thinking about that tension.

I’m starting to work more seriously on writing projects. As I listened hard at the Festival of Faith & Writing  and looked at my writing life and habits, I realize that I need to cut back on some things before I can ever dream of space to write every day.  (I know I have a lot to tell you about that experience, the festival.  We’ve been back a week and there’s been no time!)

Projects that I’m working on:

I am working on a book review of the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer for The Englewood Review of Books and hope to do more of those, both for Englewood and other publications.

I continue to write for Provoketive magazine:  This included a review of  the book Resignation of Eve by Jim Henderson, a piece titled The Accidental Stay-At-Home Mom and others, but by far the most popular essay was The Voice of the Feminine.  That content is not repeated here on my blog  so you will have to pop over to there to read it.  I hope you will.

I am working on a short series of articles on “The F word and the Church.” (Yeah, that F word: feminist.)

I am really excited to hear that I will have some poem in a book about fear titled Not Afraid to be published around August, 2012 by Civitas Press.  (This is the same press that published my essay on Depression in their book Not Alone which is available now. If you know someone who suffers from depression this book may help.  I have been told by many people that it has been a good, honest resource.  I also have many pieces on my blog about my personal trials with the black dog of depression.  They are collected here. )

What I want to change:

One thing that I find to be soul crushing and destructive for me is Facebook.  Being at-home with such great flexibility to my schedule  I see that I allow many things to interfere with the “work” of writing and with spiritual growth.  Facebook is such a time waster for me.  I’m inherently curious, nosy kind of person and the fact that I can vicariously follow along other’s lives is bad for me.  That’s where the soul crushing part comes in.   It’s like high school insecurity all over again.  So I’ve been tempted to quit completely.

Image by JJ Pacres on Flickr

But at the Festival of Faith & Writing I heard over and over that writers must have online presence and following.  We have to nurture that and  be able to “prove” our popularity to a publisher.   But the flip side of that is that it is just not good for me!

If I don’t have time

to think,

to be,

to write and

to allow the Holy One to mold and move me (not really in that order.)

So I’m backing off of social media  for a season — except here.  I’m really going to try to do this moderately.  When I got hooked on Farmville (of all things — proves I can get addicted to anything!) I had to quit cold turkey and I did.  I don’t want to do that with Facebook because I don’t like being an all or nothing person.  But I’m going to try to limit my time there.  And set some writing goals for the next few months.  I look forward to sharing those with you.

Another thing that I learned at the festival was that I need to hone the purpose of my blog.  Mine has multiple messages and intents.  I have been known to write about:

  1. family (dysfunctional and otherwise.)
  2. God and devotion, faith and (dis)belief
  3. women in the church, feminism as a Christian’s option
  4. various justice issues
  5. my alcoholism and addictions
  6. my church – Blackhawk Evangelical Church
  7. poetry on all these topics
  8. prose on all these topics

Is there anything in particular that you come here to read?  Where do you see my passions and strengths converging in helpful ways?  Would you add more of anything?

Grace & Peace. Melody

Good People (those that toil, so that others can create)

There are people,

good people who toil every day

at work they don’t love and some

days simply endure.

Why do these people, good people do that?

They’re partnered with a creative soul;

a dreamer, someone

who scribbles words one after another, collected into pages

of an idea that is yet to come;

that hears a different drum beat and dance;

who changes others’ trajectory through an image or a song;

who observes  life for its beauty and complexity;

who follows an uncomfortable path into the unknown.

These people, good people do

their everyday work because they love a dreamer.

Here’s to the good people whose love’s labor

is a gift to us all.

 

For Tom and Carol and the other good people.

I am human. Join me. (Thoughts on faith, confession and writing)

Part two of … this.  A response.

You know it’s funny.  Several people responded to what I wrote today with what I found to be a slightly odd, or at least a surprising response to me.  Okay, odd isn’t fair.  They expressed concern.   You need to know something. If I have gotten to the place of putting my thoughts down, I have lived it — bled it — known each word like a friend.  I am on the other side enjoying the lesson, learning and knowing I am beloved.  The things I write while true still, are not cloaked about me oppressively.  

You see, no matter how many times I have to learn it — like the Israelites who were incredibly short sighted, foolish and distrusting of God, over and over — I do know I am a beloved child.  I do. Don’t worry so about me.

I read an interview with Anne Lamott, a writer that I adore.  When asked about her writing about her faith (since she’s “pretty outspoken, eccentric artist—a quality we love and admire in her. How does she successfully reconcile the perhaps stereotypical connotations of ‘Christian’ in this polarized day and age—when Christian in the political sense often means an extreme conservative—with her clearly open-minded, open-hearted point of view and way of living.”)

Oh yeah, that.  I can relate.

She said:

“That’s a complicated question. A good question. You do the best you can. A certain percentage of self-identified Christians think I am doomed and just fucked beyond all imagining because I don’t believe the Bible is the literal word of God. I’m a progressive Christian. I’m more of a liberation theology person.

My religious life, my life as a recovering alcoholic, my life as a writer, and life as a public person are the center of my life along with Sam and Jackson [Sam’s son].   People are going to think what they think. It’s called “another thing I have no control over.”

And when asked about her writing process she confessed unabashedly, “Right now I have prepublication jitters, mental illness, and distraction.”

Here is what I think, we are all simply human.  And in writing about our “walk” with faith, some are more honest than others.  I try to be crystal clear, yes even hopelessly honest. That’s my style, my voice, my path.  Sure, I hope one day to write out of a place of certainty.  Just when I wish for that, then I know that I don’t really hope for that.

I carry the scars of my life, not proudly — as if — but I am not ashamed of them either. I am a child of a raging man, who was verbally abusive and controlling.  That makes me different than a lot of kids who grew up with unconditional love and certainty.  I am an alcoholic (in recovery.)  It is a part of my dna and I will write about it.  I’m a compulsive, addictive person — whether it be to Facebook, or Farmville, or television shows like Stargate, watching episode after episode for hours — and I will never have all the answers for why I am like that.  I will never know complete release from that this side of heaven.  That’s what I think.  That much is absolutely certain. But this won’t sink me, it will push me.  Humble me.  Help me to know how much I need God, and the community of believers. And what I must do is be a person that is committed to the spiritual disciplines of prayer and study, to the humble place of making callouses on my knees, and to surrendering myself to service of others.

Daily, hourly.  Sometimes moment by moment, this sweet surrender admission of my broken places.  That’s me.

Reading the incredible words today from Enuma Okoro who said in an essay on faith and the writing life, written to people who seek her wisdom, she said:

“Engaging in the craft of creative writing is where they feel most alive and the means by which they feel most passionate about witnessing to “the things about which [they] have been instructed” (Luke 1:4 NRSV).  … These men and women seek counsel on discerning how writing can be ministry and where they might turn for support and encouragement in understanding how faith and writing intersect…

and she said later:

“Take the leap of faith and trust in your gift to proclaim God’s word in new ways.” I hope I can grow into the sort of mentor who recognizes the writing gift and call in others and boldly and daringly says to them, “Write for the love and power of words. Write for the love of God.””

So, dear friends know this. When I write about the pain of being an artist in the church, or of being a feminist in an evangelical church or the f-word being a dirty word, or my struggles to totally surrender to God’s absolute love, I am simply telling you that I bleed.  I am human. Won’t you join me?

On Writing, On Being


I’ve been thinking a lot about my traumas and God’s grace, about sin and  God’s grace, about my separation from God, actually pushing God away, and the act of drawing near to him again. About the things in our lives that keep us from total dependence. My life, to be clear, my dependence.

I find it interesting the pathways we travel in life.  For me, being at home, working solidly on my writing now for months, even years, perfecting my craft, reading and writing, studying scripture, and rethinking how I read the Bible, learning the Story of the Bible.  Rethinking what it means to be a woman in the evangelical church.  Being healed, yes coming utterly unstuck with regards to bitterness over women in the EFCA denomination and specifically feeling ignored, unheard, and unimportant and then chastised for being so outspoken, but simply wanting to talk with others about their experiences as women in ministry, and not finding people like that except online.  Years of feeling very alone in all respects about all these things.

And then there is the writing; being challenged by two friends (one being my husband) to write, and remembering the others over the last year or two.  I should take up with Nike because writing, really comes down to just doing it.  Right?

Sure, you need a plan.  Perhaps there is a proposal for a book.  You need connections, eventually an agent or a publisher.  But first, you must simply be willing to write; to occupy your story and to portion out your life experiences for others; be exposed and yet trustworthy with yourself and others.  That’s the objective, but even as one engraves their story on the “page”, lives, shares, replies to others.  There is the parallel deepening comprehension that you must remain vulnerable and open to the Holy Spirit, to growing in the faith journey, to see God work – in his most miraculous, deeply challenging, sometimes abysmal challenges, promptings, and difficult though it may be – to grow!  As the scriptures are open before me, to thank God for the challenges, the scares, the mistakes, and the sin.  He won’t turn away from me.

Writing is about remembering, acknowledging the power of God in my life.  It’s about believing and knowing.  Not being perfect.  And as the two paths run parallel I suppose the challenge is to not allow the writing overtake the growing, the life story outshout the holy spirit and the narrative of scripture and all that should and is doing inside me.

And so, this place will be less a place of perfection but a place of perfecting.

Perhaps you will enjoy the process. I thank you for your grace as you journey along.

Catching Up

It has been a while, so I thought I’d simply catch you up on some goings on.

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” –CS Lewis

Writing.

Much of the month of May, I was busy writing an essay about my experience with depression for possible acceptance to a book at Civitas Press.  Until I hear yay or nay, I cannot publish it here.  But I thought perhaps I’d include a paragraph or two to tantalize you.

Hope Heals

By Melody Harrison Hanson

“I will search for my lost ones who strayed away and I will bring them safely home again. I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak…” (Ezekiel 34:16 – NLT)

This is the story of how I fell into the sinkhole of depression and climbed my way out again. My story began with pride and self-delusion and moved to healing and acceptance—forgiving myself for being less than I imagined. The path of brokenness took me to frightening, even diabolical places, but God found me in the pit of my depression, tenderly loving me as I accepted my raging need for him. Finally, in my forties, after a decade of turmoil, the crooked path led to hope and healing. Writing this, going back and lingering, has been harder than I expected. I offer it here because of what God has done in me.

When I quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom, I was unprepared for how unhappy I became. Forever seeing my life in terms of success or failure, I believed that I was failing. What kind of a mother doesn’t love being at home with her children? Over the years we shared long, sun-burnt summer days at the pool and sweaty bike rides but, even as we meandered through the zoo and the farmer’s market, I grew increasingly restless and miserable. If I was truthful, I had been frantic and dissatisfied at work. Leaving was more like running away under the ruse of caring for the kids. For years my job had buoyed me up on the raging ocean of my insecurities and fear of failure. Going home took away that life-preserver. I had never dealt with the need every human being has for purpose and significance. I had no where left to run!

I was at that time incapable of being happy at work or at home, battling the haunting, negative tape loops in my head repeating vicious lies.

I feel unimaginably grateful for so many things today.  Even if the essay doesn’t get published in the book, the exercise of going back was terrific—hard and good.

Photography.

I continue to relish taking photographs for Our Lives Magazine.  As I talked with a new acquaintance and took images of him, he spoke of wanting to be a bridge person between the Mormon community and LGBTQ friends.  That pretty much sums up why I continue with OL.  As a Christ-follower, I hope that we can know one another and treat one another with love and respect.  Darren is a photographer as well and he turned my own camera on me.  It reminded me of the feeling of always having a camera in your face (unpleasant) but I appreciated that he was able to capture a smile!  He said “You’re much nicer than your picture on the website implies.”  Thanks Darren!

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” — CS Lewis

Family.

A field trip to Old World Wisconsin, was informative and fun!

6th graders have a Middle Ages unit.  Lucky for us, Grandma Hanson can sew and she was willing and so able!

My sister and I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum the other day.

The pool is open!

Summer!

Summer officially starts for us in a week.  I will have one child in morning summer school, two middleschoolers in Young Shakespeare Player‘s rehearsing all summer for Romeo & Juliet which performs August 11-21.  And of course we have an aging college student in the house, whose laissez-faire attitude and bouncing emotions I find irritating, and draining.  But each child stretches me.  Each one, uniquely challenges my wisdom, sense of humor and grit.

The pool is open and it is finally warm!  I know we will spend long hours there, though I am no longer allowed to sun!  Squamous cell carcinoma requires me to cover up, lather up and basically consider the sun my enemy.  (Secretly, I still love the sun and being sun-kissed, hot and becoming brown and freckly.  As long as my sunscreen is strong, I do risk a little.)

I am launching int o the big task of dividing perennials in my garden.   (Let me know if you want anything).  Not just Hosta and ferns, of which I have a plethora, but lots of other plants.  I’m rethinking the front of my yard.  Because of a neighboring Black Walnut tree I’m about to give in to the fact that nothing will grow happily and I will move a number of plants and put in something (I don’t know what is resistant to Black Walnut) to cover the ground.  I’m also going to plant an herb garden in the sunny blank patch in front.

Gardening and Thinking about Writing.

While I dig in the dirt, I’ve been thinking about whether I’ve got a book in me.  The essay was incredibly challenging, fun and a lot of work!  I can see now why it sometimes takes years to write a book.  I’ve boiled over for years about women in the evangelical church, and wonder…   Is there a need for a book to challenge the current situation in the local church?  What do women need to hear?  What do men need to hear? What hasn’t been said?  What needs to be said differently?

The friend that helped me edit my essay says the full story, a memoir, could/should be told, of my fall into the sinkhole of depression.  Coming from being a workaholic and the brokenness of my dysfunctional childhood and how the Lord found me in the pit of depression and for the first time I experienced grace and peace, hope.  Perhaps there is a book there?  I have found, as I tell my story, that many people suffer from depression and feel isolated and alone.

Some images of spring in Wisconsin.

“I asked God for strength that I might achieve. I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked for health that I might do greater things. I was given infirmity that I might do better things.

I asked for riches that I might be happy. I was given poverty that I might be wise.

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things. I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered. I am, among all women, most richly blessed.” (author unknown)

I don’t know about you but I am reveling in my blessings.  And because I have to work at it  it is sweeter.  I am so grateful.

ALL MY OLD POETRY

I just realized that most of my older poems are not on my blog.  Rather than transport them, I will offer a  link here to more than fifty poems & photographs offered on my flickr site under the set “My Words.”  They can be found here.

What I wrote a few years ago about this group of work:

These poems are a reflection of my life’s journey which includes many things including faith or lack of it, love given and received, acceptance of myself and others, and those uncomfortable feelings toward people you rub up against in life. 

I have the utmost regard for my parents and so while acknowledging that they did their ‘best’ with what they were given, I can only hope that I somehow do ‘better’ for my children.

This journey is mine, I share it so that others who battle with self-loathing, doubt, depression, anger, even suicide can move to a place of acceptance and renewal.  As a person of faith, there is also an element of hope in the written word.  A declaration of the past as well as a statement of hope in the future.

/whimsy/

 


/whimsy/

Originally uploaded by M e l o d y

I am trying to decide what to “do” with this blog in 2011.

Is there anything you, dear reader, think that I should focus on?

I would love your thoughts, one and all.

— MHH

Anticipation … is Making Me Wait.

“Faith is different from theology because theology is reasoned, systematic, and orderly, whereas faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises … Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting.” — Frederick Buechner

It’s the new year.  Which means nothing really except a calendar roll over.  It provides an opportunity to reconsider our focus and intentions.  The children continue with their job of school.  Husband continues with work and musical passions.  He started a shoe-gaze type rock band in 2010 and that will continue to be his focus outside of work.  We each continue with the opportunities before us.  At church we are taught to love where we live; that’s my challenge in 2011, as I seek clarity about …well,  me.

What I’m Learning.

I’ve thought hard over the past few years and realized that I am stuck in a way.  As God has done this incredible work in my heart, mind and soul and then put me back together into the person of his making, rather than being confident in the transformation, I have grown afraid.  Fearing the hell of depression returning I’ve grown cautious and careful, reluctant to take risks of any kind or to believe in the possibilities of my future.  I have forgotten how to believe that I have a future and a hope.  Sounds strange and odd to me as I write it down but as I sat at coffee this week with a new friend, we talked about our areas of brokenness and healing.  I expressed my worry that my “mess” is impacting my children in negative ways.  I was expressing the worry I have over my complicity.

I realized in a flash of insight that I have carried an awful load on my back.  A load of fear.  And in many ways of doubt and lack of faith!  Doubt that God has plans to use me … any more.  Doubt that I have something unique to give … to the global plan of God or even local Madison.  Doubt — nagging at my soul, tearing at my heart, filling my mind, even consuming my hope.

If I could sum up what I feel God has led me to and through in the last few years, it is found in the lyrics of the song Holiness by Sonicflood.

Holiness, holiness is what I long for, Holiness is what I need. Holiness, holiness is what You want from me.

So, take my heart and form it. Take my mind and transform it. Take my will and conform it. To Yours, to Yours, oh, Lord.

Faithfulness, faithfulness is what I long for. Faithfulness is what I need. Faithfulness, faithfulness is what You want from me.

Brokenness, brokenness is what I long for. Brokenness is what I need. Brokenness, brokenness is what You want from me.

© 1999 Gotee Records; HOLINESS LYRICS – SONICFLOOD

What I Know.

This path and my story over the last few years has been about the metamorphosis of my person.  A reshaping.  A tempering.  An internal spiritual revolution if you can forgive the dramatic way of expressing it.  But it has been nothing less!  Healing implies God is finished, which is untrue.  But He allowed me to fall apart and he put me back together again.  And I learned a few things from those years of pain.

… I know God has given me the spiritual gift of Mercy. I have never been more sure of anything.  Painfully sure, to a point that I question  His care because it hurts so.  But I am learning what to do with that.  There is so much more I need to know about this and what to do with it.

… I know God has given me a Voice through writing and my photography — a way of speaking that people listen to.  A way of telling the truth.  I am learning to hone it.  And learning to listen to Him.  I seek more quiet spaces in order to listen well.  I find the noise of life to be debilitating and soul sucking!  My ability to listen to God and to listen to my heart, mind and soul and believe in my ideas is also progressing.

… I know God has put in me a thirst, a hunger, a hollowed-out cavern of unsatisfied need for the WORD of God which I cannot live without satisfying.   I want to know what to do with it?  And so I wait.

... I know that God has given me “eyes and ears” for the Ancient Tears of Women through out the history of the Church and perhaps this is a part of the heart of mercy.  I do not know why, but I do hear them crying.  And I know something must be done, said, understood, written so that future women & girls do not have that same spiritual pain.  I live in it, breath it in and out.  Their tears and cries echo in my soul becoming my tear, my cry for justice, mercy and hope for women in the Church.  As I said, I don’t know why.  I don’t know what I am to do with it yet.  And so I wait.

… I am impatient to see and understand why I have these gifts and why I hear these voices with an equal measure of apprehension and anticipation.

… I confess that I have not trusted God or believed that I have a good future ahead of me.  In my years of being broken down, losing e v e r y t h i n g that I knew to be true and solid,  God has taken the shards of what I once was, swept them up and formed me into something else — someone other than who I once was.  I just haven’t believed that this someone could be useful to God.

You see in those years, I was driven.  And insecure.  Hungry for authority and power, for significance.  Passionate,zealous and perfectionistic.  Continuously pushing myself.  Never satisfied with my work.  Rarely satisfied with others and overly judgmental, critical and irritated.  I became lonely, sad, and most importantly spiritually lacking a true faith.  I was bereft and lost as up until a few years ago I did not comprehend that Jesus died for me — yes, if I were the only one here on earth Jesus would have given his life for me — my life, my sin.  Me.  I could not accept that.  I didn’t not understand G R A C E.

And then God began to work.  And though painful it is beautiful.

But I still don’t want to live a small life.

“I live a small life. Well, valuable but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it or because I haven’t been brave?” — Meg Ryan’s character in You’ve Got Mail.

I fear insignificance and I fear my need for the opposite.  The search for significance has run deep in me.  As long as I can remember I believed that God had “saved” my life for a reason.  As a toddler I choked on a peanut and through a series of dangerous events came close to a predicted death (This was in Papua New Guinea and Australia in 1968) but God intervened; At least that is what I have always believed — that He saved me for a reason and I have been searching for that reason my entire life.

I have been Searching.

Do you believe this? I think I do.

“When God created humankind in the divine image, the highest expression of that image is the power to be a decision maker. In this sense, one is never complete, but is always being formed by the decisions we make. If this be true, God casts the responsibility on us to choose that which is best for us. These choices come inevitably from the judgments we make about what reflects our highest selves.  Each one of us is a unique person, with gifts, abilities and desires that give us the opportunities for creativity. To discover who we are and what those deep desires of our hearts mean gives us the clue to making decisions about what we do with our lives. If we choose wisely, we will experience the joy of growing a self and offering it as a source of strength to others. This does not mean that God is not with us in the critical moments of decision-making. Through prayer and meditation, we have access into the divine Presence that provides guidance and inspiration. God is never so pleased as when we stand up and make a moral decision that reflects our desire to live at the highest and most useful level attainable.”  —The Rev. Dr. Brooks Ramsey

To end where I began, with Beuchner, I am reminded that “faith is disorderly, intermittent, and full of surprises…. Faith is homesickness. Faith is a lump in the throat. Faith is less a position on than a movement toward, less a sure thing than a hunch. Faith is waiting.”

Yes, I am waiting with a lump in my throat. I’ve learned some things.  I anticipate the new year with hope and joy.

Yes, anticipation.

I Thirst [a poem]

I THIRST

by M.H. Hanson (originally posted December 7, 2010, updated December 7, 2011)

I do not know where the
words come from. They are like
water that gushes from a spigot.
I don’t question their existence.  Only quickly place the
bucket of my heart underneath praying my confession.

Come.

And as I try to catch  it I Hope that the drops will fall where they should.

In or outside the cup of my heart, dependent on a fate I do not control.

I have a thirst that lives within me, always with me.

And I must live with it every day.  And with my commitment to be authentic.
This is an adventure that began with my cavernous need.
If it is true that God suffers with us in our grief, then I am grateful for the  comfort of his companionship.
Even for this longing, a thirst that lives ever within.

Always thirsty. I don’t question the
Water’s existence.  Only quickly place the
Bucket of my heart underneath praying.

Come.